But it's a pretty fine balance, you complained when I pointed out the UK law that might provide a defence.

That's not a complaint, that's just a statement. It is difficult. Nonetheless, it is possible to sort it out in ways other that saying that everyone must serve everyone under any possible circumstances.

I think the point that Ringo is trying to make is that every Christian is free to sit and seethe in bitter resentment about the equality those no good gays have as long as they don't break the law.Render unto Caesar, etc.

All the best

And that would be the perverse twisting of the First Amendment I'm talking about, which supposedly guarantees Christians freedom to practice our religion without any restriction on being a business owner. This is the invention of Political Correctness, which seeks to bring down the Constitution.

I think we'll take it all quite calmly though, not with bitterness, when it actually comes to that. It hasn't quite yet you know so I'm trying to show that it's a violation of the Constitution. But once it truly does take over and the Constitution and American freedom is turned on its head, I think we'll just quietly know that prophecy is being fulfilled and wait for the end to come. Probably pray for the likes of you, probably go out and spread the gospel and get directly persecuted for our efforts, that sort of thing.

And that would be the perverse twisting of the First Amendment I'm talking about, which supposedly guarantees Christians freedom to practice our religion without any restriction on being a business owner.

I guess you forgot about the Commerce clause. Congress is allowed to regulate businesses.

If someone claims that their religion prevents them from serving black people, would you support the re-emergence of segregation in this country?

I guess you forgot about the Commerce clause. Congress is allowed to regulate businesses.

I see, so if they aren't quite draconian enough to directly violate our First Amendment rights, they can do it through the "Commerce clause." Well, I figure they have options to give the semblance of rationality, not that any of them have to make sense, the goal being the destruction of the Fifrst Amendment rights of Christians.. Not anhybody else, just Christians.

If someone claims that their religion prevents them from serving black people, would you support the re-emergence of segregation in this country?

No, I'd expect people to be educated enough in what is Biblical and what isn't to avoid that sort of sttuppidditty.

ABE: Ya know, the First Amendment was put into place even as Christians were preaching against slavery.

Faith why do you keep talking about the First Amendment ? It doesn't give you any rights that the Segregationists didn't have. You accept that the laws were Constitutional when they gave Blacks the right to service, overriding the religious beliefs of the Segregationists. You have no legal reasoning that would allow a different outcome - I know, I asked.

So really, you've accepted that First Amendment rights are NOT being violated here. So why keep harping on about it ?

What you seem to be doing here and correct me if I'm wrong is appending 'business' on to 'Christian'. Anyone is free to be a Christian or to run a business abut I see no provision in your Constitution to run a Christian business.

All the best.

The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer.-Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53

The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286

Does a query (thats a question Stile) that uses this physical reality, to look for an answer to its existence and properties become theoretical, considering its deductive conclusions are based against objective verifiable realities.-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 134

The First Amendment protects the Christian religion, in whatever form of life chosen. No limits are implied and you all are way out of line, just as the courts are that have been persecuting these Christian business owners for their religious beliefs. For you to keep comparing it with beliefs Christians don't hold is just more scurrilous twisting to deprive Christians of their First Amendment right.

And now you're lying Faith. The Segregationists - or many of them at least - were conservative Christians who argued that segregation was their Christian belief. So I am arguing on the basis of beliefs that Christians at the least claimed to hold at the time the laws were passed. And in fact, a former member here, now deceased, was one of these Christians.

What is more, the First Amendment does not single out Christianity for special protection, nor has it ever been the case that it gives a free pass to actions motivated by religious belief. Belief is given unconditional protection, actions receive much more limited protection. That's why a religious belief that the races should remain separate is not a valid legal excuse for excluding Blacks, or Asians or anyone from a business.

The First Amendment protects the Christian religion, in whatever form of life chosen. No limits are implied and you all are way out of line, just as the courts are that have been persecuting these Christian business owners for their religious beliefs. For you to keep comparing it with beliefs Christians don't hold is just more scurrilous twisting to deprive Christians of their First Amendment right.

Nonsense Faith. The First Amendment does not protect any religion, particularly Christianity. The First Amendment protects individuals FROM having the other guys religion imposed upon them.

No one is forcing the bakers to approve of or endorse or practice homosexuality or to marry someone of the same sex.

But the First Amendment does protect the client from the bakers religion.

The purpose of the First Amendment is and was to prevent crazy Calvinists and Puritans from trying yet again to set up a "Christian Theocracy".

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

... but your position IS a violation of my First Amendment right to act on my religious beliefs by refusing a particular service that violates them.

You're not listening. I agree that you have every right to deny services for whatever petty reasons your religion dictates. But the community you live in also has every right to deny you a business license.

This church isn't "educated enough in what is Biblical" to "avoid that sort of sttuppidditty". So why would we assume that an ordinary secular business would be "educated enough in what is Biblical" to "avoid that sort of sttuppidditty".

Also, thinking about it --- don't you usually suppose that society was more Christian back in the day, in, let's say, the 1950s? When segregation was the law of the land? Since society has become less Christian since then, and yet more opposed to racial discrimination, I don't see how one can claim that this idea of "what is Biblical" would make people less discriminatory. Indeed, pretty much everyone arguing for discrimination thumped the Bible and said it was God's law.

The First Amendment protects the Christian religion, in whatever form of life chosen.

No. No it doesn't. It wouldn't protect Catholics who burned a Protestant at the stake for heresy. The First Amendment doesn't protect people who step over the line drawn by the law of the land. Burning a Protestant would still be murder.

So we have to sort this out. Where does freedom of religion stop, and where can the law take over? It's a real question, we can't just give carte blanche to someone who wants to burn Protestants.